Courts & Law

Wilenchik’s New Times Grand Jury: a Networked Journalism Project

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UPDATE: I’ve now made the materials released thus far by Judge Baca in the New Times affair available online to anyone who is interested in viewing them: GJDocuments1.pdf GJDocuments2.pdf GJDocuments3.pdf GJDocuments4.pdf GJDocuments5.pdf GJDocuments6.pdf GJDocuments7.pdf GJDocuments8.pdf GJDocuments9.pdf BacaTranscripts.pdf A preliminary review of the documents reveals that Judge Baca released all documents related to the legal tussle … Read more

Thomas and Wilenchik Guilty of Abuse of Process?

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The arrest of the founders of the New Times for revealing the contents of an overly broad Grand Jury subpoena was not only an egregious example of prosecutorial harassment by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his hand-picked ‘special prosecutor’ Dennis Wilenchik, it may also have been a blatant misuse of the law. I have … Read more

Governor Andrew Thomas… NOT!

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American demagogues, such as Senator Joe McCarthy, tend to over-reach in a system designed to prevent over-reach (how we can explain the lack of resistance to Bush’s over-reaching, I haven’t yet figured out). Eventually, these authoritarian personalities, drunk on power and their initial success take a bite they are unable to chew. In McCarthy’s case, … Read more

Andrew Thomas Greenlights Judge Ryan to his Thugs

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In the parlance of thugs, to greenlight an enemy is to put out the word that the mark is fair game, and anyone who takes a whack at the target will be rewarded. It is therefore contextually appropriate to say that Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has greenlighted Judge Ryan to the hate-filled immigration crowd … Read more

Andrew Thomas Propositions Arizona

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The current Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas is a savvy politician. He knows what red meat smells like and he knows his constituents’ feeding schedule. And he has skillfully used ballot propositions to position himself with voters and to shape the debate on crime and immigration. He created and sponsored a proposition in 1996 that … Read more